Disclosed herein are a method and apparatus for disallowing devices for print driver printing.
Presently, image forming devices such as printers, copiers and multi-function devices provide users the ability to print from user devices such as desktop or laptop computers, handheld computers, or other electronic devices, to a printer connected to the device. The electronic devices may be stand alone devices, or may be connected over a network, such as in a business, campus, or personal computing environment, that includes one or more printers.
In order for a printer to interface with and function with the user device to which it is connected, a printer driver can typically be installed on the user device. A printer driver is software which controls the printer from the user device. The printer driver may include a user interface which may be typically accessed by a user through an operating system or an application program, such as a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, or other types of programs, and viewed on a display.
Users of user devices in a network have access to all of the printers on the network. Unfortunately, users send print jobs to printers that are not appropriate for their print job. For example, a user in an accounting department may send a spreadsheet print job to a glossy paper color printer in a graphics department, where a standard paper black and white printer would be more appropriate and would not waste unnecessary resources. Therefore, system administrators want to prohibit select users from printing to specific devices to provide efficient workflow and appropriate resource usage. Thus, there is a need for an apparatus and method for disallowing devices for print driver printing.